


The Irony of Eratosthenes

by euphorbic



Series: Angel of Cities [16]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angels, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Gratuitous Imagery, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8731333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphorbic/pseuds/euphorbic
Summary: Shaw is dead, the Alexandrian is gone, the Library is in ruins, and Alexandria appears saved. However, Charles has little hope to save Erik unless he can get him to his city. But then the city comes to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I altered this piece slightly from the Tumblr version. Specifically, how it ends.
> 
> If you want more AoC even if it doesn't focus on Charles and Erik, I have posted two scenes from Az's pov on Tumblr. [AoC tag is here.](http://euphorbic.tumblr.com/tagged/angel-of-cities)
> 
>  **Chapter trigger warnings** : Dead body, character death of a sort, grief.

When Charles opens his eyes Ronove’s one-armed body is crumpled on the ground. All his manifestations are gone; the scythe-like wings, most of the blood, the ashes; without them his body is mundane, pathetic. His hair lies limp, his metallic eyes are glassy, his final tears are slipping down his dead cheeks over congealing blood. There’s blood everywhere, but the only movement it makes is a slow drip from the open wound where his arm was severed.

There’s a twinge in Charles’ mind, a pain that bursts across his synapses, the death of something within his mind that rips invisible nerves raw and open. Across his vision bloom spots of color, light stabs deep into his brain via his pupils, but Charles pulls himself to his hands and knees and crawls to the faded and flickering vision of his Power.

As he moves, he hears the squeak of sneakers on the marble floor and grits his teeth. He doesn’t need the sound to know that Kitty is running from Erik’s side. “Professor, is he dead?”

 _Yes_ , Charles responds once he picks out of her mind which of the Powers she’s referring to.  _Please don’t speak; I’ve the beginnings of a terrible migraine. If you could, please run and tell the others the Alexandrian is dead. Contact Azazel as fast as you humanly can, Erik must get to Bashan immediately._

He feels her next question even as her sneakers screech their halt. Then she’s moving again, toward him, not away as he had hoped. Kitty says nothing, she closes the meager distance and pulls Charles up by one arm and wordlessly guides him to what remains of Erik. She helps him to sit and runs away to find the help they need.

Even so, Charles is with her mind just long enough to feel her eyes burn and blur with moisture and then feel the tears as they fall down her cheeks. She defies his orders once more to check behind the massive cinnabar column where Anne Marie’s unconscious body rests before running on.

It’s strange to see Erik like this; a flickering hologram of his former glory. His electromagnetic field is so weak that Charles feels none of the usual shudder that accompanies close proximity to his Angel.

Erik has faded from his transparent head to the vague suggestion of his thighs and elbows. His skin has little texture and is so pale that the veins threading beneath show dark through it. His lips are faded and his eyes are half-lidded and sparking with inhuman swirls of light. The only consolation is his lack of shaking, but that is likely due to his level of Dissipation.

“Charles.” His voice crackles with static; a frequency lost between channels and even though that voice is distant, Charles’ migraine isn’t immune to it.

 _Speak like this_ , Charles smiles and sends a swell of love through their connection.

But that connection feels every bit as far away as Erik’s voice. The feeling is disturbing; Charles pushes forward to grasp at Erik’s essence, but resorts to his physical mouth to speak. “Azazel will come soon and we can move you to Bashan immediately. She’ll heal you.”

Erik smiles and shakes his head. “Please, hold.”

Hysteria pulls nausea into his throat at the shake of Erik’s head and the failing structure of his sentence, but he complies, of course he complies. Charles sits up into a kneeling position for leverage and reaches for Erik’s arms, even though they flicker and fade, even though he has no forearms.

There’s something to Erik under his arms, something to grip, but to Charles’ further horror Erik weighs nearly nothing; perhaps as little as a housecat. The bright side is how easy it is to pull him up and into Charles’ lap. For further intimacy, he leans back from kneeling until his rump hits the marble floor once again and Erik lays, a fading hologram, in the cradle of his crossed legs.

Erik’s hair still weaves in the air, born on unseen winds, but it moves in fits and starts. Though he feels nothing, the locks trail in and out of Charles’ thighs and abdomen. Charles’ fingers dip into Erik’s face as he caresses his Angel’s hollow cheeks.

From far away, Charles feels an impulse that Erik wants to touch him back, but if he does, Charles doesn’t feel it; Erik’s hands are nowhere to be seen.

“Just a little longer,” Charles whispers, uncaring of the pain it causes his head. How is it he can feel every hair on his own head, all the weight of his brain, but nothing of Erik’s head resting against his abdomen?

“No,” says a voice, loud and clear; a voice that is given body by a thousand thousand beating, insectoid wings. “The Temporal Power is done here. It has served its purpose and is no longer needed.”

Charles looks around but sees nothing. But then he remembers and closes his eyes to see with the fading vision of his Bond.

He sees her like a waking dream, hanging in the air, a dark-skinned woman with eyes the color of fertile soil. Her hair floats around her head in a cloud of negative space filled with stars. At her back is a blur of motion and two sets of insect wings. Both sets bend forward and around her naked body; one set covers her face and the other covers her feet. The wings are transparent between their membranes and conceal nothing.

“Who are you?” Charles asks. He feels he should know this woman; she’s achingly familiar even if he knows that he’s never seen anyone like her. If she’s an Angel she’s unlike any he’s ever seen before.

“We are your home,” she says with her buzzing voice. “We are a fertile land of mighty oaks and water; we are they you call Bashan.”

Hope seizes Charles’ despite her previous words. “Thank God. Please heal Erik! If you’re here, surely you can bring him into Equilibrium, too!”

“We are not here for Temporal Power Erik,” her wings’ voices say. “We are here for Delphi.”

“Delphi..?” Charles sputters. Delphi is far away, Erik is right here in Alexandria.

“We summoned Temporal Power Erik at Delphi’s request. We set it before you as Delphi bade. Its work is achieved and it will dissipate until needed once more.”

“It? What..?” Charles says. Understanding dawns. “What are you saying? That Erik was summoned because Delphi foresaw Alexandria’s problem with Ronové? Why didn’t he Manifest here? Can’t you or Delphi give him a new task?”

“Alexandria could not be allowed dominion over the method of Ronové’s Dissipation. Temporal Power Erik’s governance is a Prime element; it is too dangerous, too volatile, to be left in human hands.”

In his lap, Erik’s body continues to lose solidity. Charles instinctively holds him tighter and gives an anguished sob when his hands sink through Erik’s chest. “No, please! He’s learning! He’s been so good, so perfect. You must have seen, you must know! He’s come so far. Please, you must know I can control him!”

Bashan’s face remains impassive and for a moment she says nothing. Then the blur at her back breaks up into a swarm of iridescent beetles. Erik’s swarm, Charles realizes, was never his. It was always Bashan’s.

“Even we cannot always control a Temporal power. No,” the wings of her voice say from the swarm, “Delphi will not risk their beloved and we will not risk ourself; we are home to many. You have little time, Charles Francis Xavier. Your Erik’s time is nearly gone this Manifestation.”

He spares one last moment to glare at her, his fury potent despite the pervasive agony rolling back and forth across the inside of his skull.

And in the instant of his anger, he feels a sudden weight on his legs, then the telltale shudder of Erik’s power. Erik feels suddenly close, so present in Charles’ mind that at first he thinks Bashan has quickened him. But as quick as his relief comes, it shatters again when he looks down into Erik’s pale face, fury and hatred’s power glowing bright in his previously sparking eyes. A wave of power flows from Erik and brings his body back down as far as his knees and the outline of his fingertips.

Erik’s purpose may have been to help Charles defeat Ronové, but his will is to protect Charles. Where Erik takes the power from, Charles doesn’t know, but it is wild, uncontrolled, and terrifying. Half Bashan’s swarm, formerly Erik’s, crumple into themselves like crushed balls of tinfoil. The Library shudders. Glass breaks all around as metal twists around blackened stained glass. Like a more deadly version of Emma’s desert, it begins to rain glass.

Anger evaporates from Charles and leaves him wrecked.  _No, Erik, no._

“Farewell, Charles Francis Xavier,” says Bashan. Charles barely registers the vibrations of her voice. “You are welcome within us and, by virtue of Delphi’s beloved, you are welcomed with them as well. In time, Alexandria may welcome you, too.”

Without Charles’ anger to trigger him, Erik’s power fades immediately, all Erik’s fury melts away. His power contracts, his body turns completely transparent, and he is weightless in Charles’ lap. Though there remain no defined irises or pupils in Erik’s eyes, he knows Erik is looking up at him.

His lips have no definition, but the impression of his mouth works to form words that cannot be heard. But Charles knows what has been said.

“I know,” Charles replies, “I love you, too.”

The worst part is when his tears fall through Erik’s face and soak into the tattered and bloodied fabric of Charles’ trousers. It is worse than the shudder of the ruined metal frame of the skylight above. It is worse than what the groaning screech of metal on metal does to Charles' head, agony though it is. And Charles can’t find it in him to begrudge Erik that last angry urge and burst of strength, even when the great metal structure gives way and comes crashing down.

**Author's Note:**

> There is one more piece to go after this, unless I decide to fill in some of the many blanks in the narrative.


End file.
